


Sauvage

by strawberrylippy



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, it's the sexual tension innit?, james knows how to get under q's skin, turns out q has a thing for james nicking his cologne, we been knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27753964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrylippy/pseuds/strawberrylippy
Summary: An unexpected visit to Q's flat proves to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. After a night together, James has a surprise for his Quartermaster at work the next day.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 1
Kudos: 95





	Sauvage

**Author's Note:**

> Here we see my first foray into fanfic writing. It's a short little piece, but I thought we could all use some of that soft 00q content.

If Q was being honest with himself, it was terribly strange to see James sharp and clean cut. If he was to run through their countless encounters in his head, he’d wager that more than half featured a bloodied, bruised, or ‘MIA for nearly a month and it shows’ Bond. Then again, maybe he only really remembered the bad times. The twang in his heart when any of the agents - and he was only slightly stretching the truth by saying that - came back in worse shape than they left. He was their guardian angel, after all. The angel of all their death and destruction as he chirped away in their ears and every time he gave them a new toy to play with.

In other words, one James Bond in a freshly pressed suit looking as disarmingly impeccable as ever on one’s doorstep took a few seconds to process.

“You can’t be that surprised to see me, Q.”

That stupid little ‘I’m the cat, and you’re the mouse’ smile was beaming at Q, slight and unbelievably irritating as James simply took Q’s silence as an invitation into his home, the agent pre-empting any objections by squeezing past with an outstretched arm which - thankfully enough - had a bottle of what Q could only assume was whiskey attached to the end.

“At least you had the common sense to use the front door for once…” the younger man bit out under his breath as he closed the door. “Given my vocal dislike of whiskey I suppose that entire bottle is yours?” James had made his own way to the kitchen, raided Q’s cupboards for glasses with frankly terrifying efficacy. It took all of Q’s self-restraint to hold back his ‘how the hell-’ line of questioning; with Bond, it was probably better not to know.

“It’s not whiskey, it’s brandy,” James replied, “But if you’re so keen on abstaining, yes, I’m sure I could polish this off tonight by myself. Mightn’t be the best idea given that I have a meeting with M tomorrow morning, but…” he trailed off with an all-too-cheeky smile, the sort that had Q rolling his eyes and plodding over to the counter to retrieve his glass of alcohol.

“The day you start taking punctuality and professionalism seriously, 007, is the day pigs fly.” Glass in hand, Q left James to his own devices, the mere idea of playing gracious host to a man who had bled on nearly every surface of his house not exactly appealing.

“Why are you here, anyway? It’s not like you.”  
“Well, I was hoping you’d have things hidden away here that R&D don’t know about; see if there was anything I could nick-” while his tone could’ve been mistaken for something far more serious if one wasn’t regularly working side-by-side with the man, Q simply had the overwhelming urge to smack him on the shoulder. Again, he restrained himself.

“They’ve not sold your flat again, have they? Because if they have, my couch very much isn’t available.”

That drew a chuff of not-quite-derisive laughter from the blond, head shaking, “No, they haven’t. Though if they do, the flimsy latch on your kitchen window won’t do much to stop me from commandeering your cats’ favourite scratching post. I could be in and out without you knowing. Maybe I already have been-”

It was exceedingly simple to see why a man like Bond got under people’s skin, both in the ‘he’s absolutely stunning’ sense and the ‘if I had a weapon on hand I’d bludgeon him with it to shut him up’ sense. Q was very solidly straddling that fence, the intrusive thoughts begging him to toss his still-full glass of brandy at the agent’s head. Needless to say, the glass remained firmly in Q’s grip as his guest took a seat beside him on the sofa.

“I really don’t know how you manage to exist with an ego that big, Bond, honestly... You’re more delusional than your medical records let on if you think you’re that infallible.”

Bright blue eyes remained fixed on the younger man as the agent took a drink, a brow quirking as if to goad him on. “The window latch is intentionally loose. I have an alarm set up, nearly invisible, that trips whenever the window opens. You don’t use that window, anyway, you use the bathroom window.”

It was Q’s turn, then, to take a smug sip of his drink, expression only briefly faltering as he acclimated to the sting of his drink. “I’ve got CCTV in every last corner of this house. The last time you were here was Tuesday of last week. No physical trace left behind, but a handy digital one for the likes of me who enjoys having something to tease you about.”  
Bond loved this. The back and forth, the tug of war, the one-upmanship. It was what made the chase so tantalizing, what made Q such a pleasure to work with. The young man wasn’t afraid, and for a man like Bond, that was as rare as a flying pig.

“The question still remains as to why you’ve never let on before now.”

A chuff of laughter from Q this time, amusement lighting up his expression as he simply looked at the man beside him, “Because, 007, I was waiting to see how long it would take you to use the bloody front door, like a civilized person. Like someone who was intending on spending time with a colleague and not an insufferable double-oh who’s become afraid of the doldrums of regular life.”

James shifted in his seat, sat his drink down on the cluttered table beside him, “And this fell on my shoulders because-?”

“Because you doing things the right way says more about the situation than me asking you if you’d like to go out for a drink after work.”

The situation. _The situation_. It hung in the air, almost palpable despite it being an unspoken concept; they both knew what the situation was, after all.

“So, I’ve fallen into your trap, then, have I? The brazen agent falling victim to the wily Quartermaster’s elaborate plan?”

“You’re hardly the type to do anything you don’t want to, Bond. I’m not stupid.” Q knew that this encounter alone spoke volumes, all but canonized the respect and trust Bond held for him. It would be touching if they were in a different line of work, but as they weren’t, Q simply took it for what it was.

There were a few seconds of comfortable silence as the pair simply stared at each other, did all their usual mental calculations and observations. Is he serious? Is he okay with this? Is he having me on? Both parties ran through the possibilities, but as Q knocked back his drink with only a slightly dramatic retch, the doubts faded away.

“If that was your attempt at hurrying things along-”  
“Fuck off.”

Eyes crinkled at the corners as Bond grinned, genuinely grinned. From there, it was only a few seconds more before the agent was rising to his feet, draining his glass in the second it took for him to get from his arse to his feet.

“Should I bring the bottle?”  
“If you do, I’m liable to smash you over the head with it if you get too cocky.”  
“You’re truly terrible with these dissuasions, Q-”

* * *

When he came to, it was with a splitting headache and the overwhelming desire to smother himself with a pillow. His alarm’s shrill chirping was grating against his very soul, and if he wasn’t quite so hungover, he would’ve been quick to throw the thing across the room. Unfortunately, he was hungover. Nauseous, sweaty, sore. Sated. As expected, he’d woken up alone, the now-empty bottle of brandy occupying the space that Bond had occupied a few hours earlier.

Surprisingly enough, Q couldn’t muster up any sense of disappointment at that fact. They’d been on the same page when they’d fallen into bed last night. Neither of them were strangers to flings, even flings with colleagues; Q’s own relationship with Bond had been so intricately laced with sexual tension that the previous night had simply seemed like a logical conclusion.

Well, maybe not _conclusion_ …

Q’s lethargic thoughts were swiftly interrupted by a pair of mews from the doorway of his room, the pair of cats quite obviously unimpressed with the fact that their owner had let the alarm sound for as long as it had. The dishevelled young man valued his fingers too much to let it go on any longer.

* * *

“Morning, Q” R’s chipper tone was doing him very few favours as he dragged himself into the bullpen. She was doing it intentionally, he knew, but he didn’t have the energy to not play along. “Can it really be considered morning when it’s still dark outside?”

He held his tongue as he occupied himself with his definitely-not-strong-enough cup of coffee and shucked his coat. “Can we just talk about what ops are running, please?”  
“Of course. 009 managed to retrieve the two hard drives, both still intact by some miracle. Walk in the park once he gets them back to us. 005 lost secure comms, but we got them back after a frantic few hours-” the warble-clank of a glass door opening stopped R in her tracks, had both her and Q directing particularly sour looks at whatever poor soul was the source of the sound.

Neither of them withered when it turned out to be Bond.

“Oh, Christ... You’re not even supposed to be down here, 007. We have nothing for you, and, honestly, you’ll just get in the way if you linger.”  
“-And weren’t you supposed to have a meeting with M around about now?”

Icy blues settled on Q instead of his colleague, evidently impressed with the fact that the bespectacled man remembered anything from the previous night, much less a throwaway comment about a meeting.

“I’ve had it already, actually, and he’s the one who sent me down here” a fib, yes, but one neither Q or R could immediately disprove. That fact alone annoyed them both to no end.

“That doesn’t exactly change the fact that you’re in the way.”

Not entirely unlike a mischievous child, Bond took that as an invitation to perch on the corner of Q’s desk. R frowned. Q went rigid.

“There. No more in the way than the desk is. Better, R?”

She simply sighed in response, dropped a folder down beside the encroaching agent and went back to her own desk. She wasn’t paid enough to deal with agents in the office, especially not 007.

There was a smug look of superiority of Bond’s face, a look of pride as he folded his arms across his chest. “I never took you for a _Sauvage_ man, Q, but now that I’ve tried it out myself, I see the appeal.”  
Q felt himself go lightheaded, had to actively hold himself up as he leaned against his desk. If Bond showing up unannounced via the front door was unexpected, this was the manifestation of a dream. A fantasy. _He had to still be asleep-_

“Y-yes. Quite.” It wasn’t like him to stumble over his words, but evidently this was a rather exceptional exception. The conscious part of his brain couldn’t compute, but he knew damn well that his subconscious brain was filing this little incident away for later. When he was lying in bed and trying his damnedest to _not_ think about Bond.

* * *

“How the Hell-” it had been the second bottle this month he’d gone through. And while he _was_ a tech genius, he certainly didn’t take after the habits of all those college computer science students. He bathed. He only used cologne as an accent instead of a substitute for cleanliness. It made the disappearance of his _Sauvage_ all the stranger.

Strange until he came across the bottle on the kitchen counter when he went downstairs.

_Might want to really check that kitchen window alarm… think it’s faulty._

_\- J_


End file.
